Pakistan: Arrests thwart Karachi attacks

Seven members of a banned militant group with links to al Qaeda and the Taliban were arrested with explosives and narcotics over the weekend in Karachi, Pakistan, and their planned attacks were thwarted, authorities said. The group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf banned in 2001, was planning to conduct attacks in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, according to Police Chief Waseem Ahmad. The suspects were arrested in Karachi on Sunday

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Voter gripes abound as Afghans count presidential ballots

More than 200 allegations of irregularities in last week’s presidential elections in Afghanistan have been registered, according to the independent commission set up to handle such complaints. Despite domestic accusations from one of the presidential candidates that the vote was rigged, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan called the election “a very well-organized campaign.” “The Afghan-led independent electoral commission looks like it managed a pretty good process,” Ambassador Karl Eikenberry said Sunday

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Former president and Nobel laureate laid to rest

South Korea bade farewell to former President Kim Dae-jung Sunday in a ceremony attended by thousands of citizens, dignitaries and politicians. The solemn Sunday afternoon ceremony was held outside parliament, with a large portrait of Kim placed on a shrine surrounded by flowers. The funeral followed six days of mourning for Kim, who died Tuesday of a heart failure

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Report: Koreas hold rare high-level talks

South Korea’s unification minister met with North Korea’s unity leader Saturday in another sign that icy relations between the two rival nations could be thawing, the South’s state media reported. The meeting was the first high-level cross border contact in nearly two years, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported. South Korea’s Unification Minister Hyun In Taek held talks with Kim Yang Gon, head of the North’s Workers’ Party unification, the agency reported

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